Cat's Cradle : Witch Mark (The New Doctor Who Adventures)

Rating:
Summary: "Only a Pennsylvanian would do that."
Review: CAT'S CRADLE: WITCH MARK takes place both in the mythical land of Tir na n-Og, and in a simple Welsh village. We know that the land is mythical because we see a lot of unicorns and centaurs. We know that the small village is in Wales, because characters actually refer to each other as "Boyo". The story starts off intriguingly enough. A bus crashes, and during the police investigation, it is discovered that none of the dead bodies can be identified. It's an interesting twist on the standard missing persons story, but unfortunately, the narrative isn't able to sustain its interesting beginnings.

The plot turns out to be slightly poorer than it really should be. To make a long story short, this is the tale of a quest across a strange and magical land, filled with centaurs, unicorns, trolls and other unworldly creatures. Unfortunately, that's all the story is. The Doctor and Ace begin their trek fairly early in the book, but by the three-quarters mark, they are still pretty much in the same state that they were in the beginning, the plot not having budged an inch. Don't get me wrong now, I don't mind a story that's padded, as long as the padding consists of interesting material, sparking prose and enough entertaining substance to maintain the reader's attention. This is not what we got here. And on top of that, after one has struggled through pages and pages that don't amount to anything, the resolution is shockingly quick and far too simple. I do not have a problem with the Doctor talking his way through a solution; in fact, I think some of the best stories have been enhanced by featuring a clever and witty Doctor who is able to mentally run rings around his opponent. Unfortunately, the level of argument has to be of a higher quality than what we ended up with here. Having the Doctor more or less saying, "Don't do this evil thing" and giving the villain no greater of a response than, "Gee, okay" does not make for an exciting resolution.

Even more appalling than the lackluster outcome to the villain's evil scheme is the fact that there are numerous plot threads that are just left dangling. Character motivations that one expected to be explained by the end of the book simply aren't addressed. There are many sequences that only work if you don't think about them too much and forget them before you reach the ending. If one happens to go back and start picking things apart, one will find a host of actions and scenes that were simply left unresolved. It really leaves a bad taste in one's mouth.

WITCH MARK features two of the worst portrayed Americans that the series has ever seen. In their introduction, the author is so intent on making sure they're recognizably American, that he moves them way beyond Cliché American and Stereotypical American and blasts them somewhere into the realm of Ludicrously American and Overwhelmingly Fake American. Make no mistake, if this was a televised story, then they'd both end up sounding exactly like the oh-so-American guy in TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN who went around spouting off macho nonsensical dialog such as, "Hey, some character's gone an' bahlled up tha loh-t!", "C'mon, let's get back to tha rah-ket!", and "Hey, Vic!" Not exactly the soft, realistic character study that one should be aiming for.

The other characters aren't much better. The Doctor and Ace aren't acting like their usual selves. The Seventh Doctor seems at times to be behaving like any incarnation other than the current one. Ace is back to being a silly teenager who appears to have completely bypassed the events of REVELATION and WARHEAD. Secondary characters are similarly poor, with special mention going to the idiot, lisping priest. Future authors should take note: speech impediments aren't really all that funny, and there's nothing more annoying than reading dialog that incorporates a heavy lisp. I was begging for the character to give a quick wink to the audience, shout "Thufferin' thuccotath!", and then take a flying leap towards the nearest window.

The book does have a few things working for it. The mixture of science fiction and fantasy is actually quite interesting. There was the potential here for everything to be rationalized away in an extremely boring "here's the way magic and science really work" speech, yet it rose above these would-be pitfalls. The relationship between Tir na n-Og and "real" Earth somehow managed to come across without feeling cheap. The story was straightforward enough and could be fairly enjoyable in a leave-your-brain-at-the-door type of way. It just isn't at all satisfying.

In the end, sloppy writing and elemental mistakes really hurt this book. What should have been a mind-blowing ending to the Cat's Cradle series turns out to be a fairly standard run-around in fantasy-land. The story itself is hurt by a lack of coherence and a dearth of uninteresting characters. Definitely not one of the better written NAs.

Rating:
Summary: "Only a Pennsylvanian would do that."
Review: CAT'S CRADLE: WITCH MARK takes place both in the mythical land of Tir na n-Og, and in a simple Welsh village. We know that the land is mythical because we see a lot of unicorns and centaurs. We know that the small village is in Wales, because characters actually refer to each other as "Boyo". The story starts off intriguingly enough. A bus crashes, and during the police investigation, it is discovered that none of the dead bodies can be identified. It's an interesting twist on the standard missing persons story, but unfortunately, the narrative isn't able to sustain its interesting beginnings.

The plot turns out to be slightly poorer than it really should be. To make a long story short, this is the tale of a quest across a strange and magical land, filled with centaurs, unicorns, trolls and other unworldly creatures. Unfortunately, that's all the story is. The Doctor and Ace begin their trek fairly early in the book, but by the three-quarters mark, they are still pretty much in the same state that they were in the beginning, the plot not having budged an inch. Don't get me wrong now, I don't mind a story that's padded, as long as the padding consists of interesting material, sparking prose and enough entertaining substance to maintain the reader's attention. This is not what we got here. And on top of that, after one has struggled through pages and pages that don't amount to anything, the resolution is shockingly quick and far too simple. I do not have a problem with the Doctor talking his way through a solution; in fact, I think some of the best stories have been enhanced by featuring a clever and witty Doctor who is able to mentally run rings around his opponent. Unfortunately, the level of argument has to be of a higher quality than what we ended up with here. Having the Doctor more or less saying, "Don't do this evil thing" and giving the villain no greater of a response than, "Gee, okay" does not make for an exciting resolution.

Even more appalling than the lackluster outcome to the villain's evil scheme is the fact that there are numerous plot threads that are just left dangling. Character motivations that one expected to be explained by the end of the book simply aren't addressed. There are many sequences that only work if you don't think about them too much and forget them before you reach the ending. If one happens to go back and start picking things apart, one will find a host of actions and scenes that were simply left unresolved. It really leaves a bad taste in one's mouth.

WITCH MARK features two of the worst portrayed Americans that the series has ever seen. In their introduction, the author is so intent on making sure they're recognizably American, that he moves them way beyond Cliché American and Stereotypical American and blasts them somewhere into the realm of Ludicrously American and Overwhelmingly Fake American. Make no mistake, if this was a televised story, then they'd both end up sounding exactly like the oh-so-American guy in TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN who went around spouting off macho nonsensical dialog such as, "Hey, some character's gone an' bahlled up tha loh-t!", "C'mon, let's get back to tha rah-ket!", and "Hey, Vic!" Not exactly the soft, realistic character study that one should be aiming for.

The other characters aren't much better. The Doctor and Ace aren't acting like their usual selves. The Seventh Doctor seems at times to be behaving like any incarnation other than the current one. Ace is back to being a silly teenager who appears to have completely bypassed the events of REVELATION and WARHEAD. Secondary characters are similarly poor, with special mention going to the idiot, lisping priest. Future authors should take note: speech impediments aren't really all that funny, and there's nothing more annoying than reading dialog that incorporates a heavy lisp. I was begging for the character to give a quick wink to the audience, shout "Thufferin' thuccotath!", and then take a flying leap towards the nearest window.

The book does have a few things working for it. The mixture of science fiction and fantasy is actually quite interesting. There was the potential here for everything to be rationalized away in an extremely boring "here's the way magic and science really work" speech, yet it rose above these would-be pitfalls. The relationship between Tir na n-Og and "real" Earth somehow managed to come across without feeling cheap. The story was straightforward enough and could be fairly enjoyable in a leave-your-brain-at-the-door type of way. It just isn't at all satisfying.

In the end, sloppy writing and elemental mistakes really hurt this book. What should have been a mind-blowing ending to the Cat's Cradle series turns out to be a fairly standard run-around in fantasy-land. The story itself is hurt by a lack of coherence and a dearth of uninteresting characters. Definitely not one of the better written NAs.

Rating:
Summary: The Doctor and the unicorns?
Review: The TARDIS' ongoing problems worsen, and an emergency landing brings the Doctor and Ace to a small Welsh village. Strange creature from legend have been spotted, and a stone circle contains the gateway to another world...

The concluding book in the Cat's Cradle trilogy, this one is plainly the work of a first-time author. While every author must write a first book, that is not necessarily ever published. Mr. Hunt shows that he needed more experience to make this book work. I could give a list of faults, but basically they all come down to that he doesn't understand how a book works. This is not to say that he has no potential!

Add to this that it is of a type that I don't like (explaining myths and legends as science fiction) means that it certainly wasn't a good read for me.

Rating:
Summary: The Doctor and the unicorns?
Review: The TARDIS' ongoing problems worsen, and an emergency landing brings the Doctor and Ace to a small Welsh village. Strange creature from legend have been spotted, and a stone circle contains the gateway to another world...

The concluding book in the Cat's Cradle trilogy, this one is plainly the work of a first-time author. While every author must write a first book, that is not necessarily ever published. Mr. Hunt shows that he needed more experience to make this book work. I could give a list of faults, but basically they all come down to that he doesn't understand how a book works. This is not to say that he has no potential!

Add to this that it is of a type that I don't like (explaining myths and legends as science fiction) means that it certainly wasn't a good read for me.